W. H. Auden: Quotes
- Crisis and Upheaval
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate. - Evil
Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.: A Certain World
- Evil
Evil is unspectacular and always human
And shares our bed and eats at our own table. - Heroism
No hero is immortal till he dies.
- History
Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.: The Dyer's Hand
- Intelligence and Intellectuals
To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say,
Is a keen observer of life,
The word “Intellectual” suggests straight away
A man who's untrue to his wife.
: New Year Letter - Ireland and the Irish
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen. - Music
No opera plot can be sensible, for in sensible situations people do not sing.
- Pain and Suffering
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. - Poetry and Poets
It's a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.: The Dyer's Hand
- Psychiatry and Psychology
Of course, Behaviorism ‘works.' So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviorist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.: A Certain World
- Questions
To ask the hard question is simple.
- Reputation
Let us honor if we can
The vertical man,
Though we value none
But the horizontal one. - The Senses
The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar, and is shocked by the unexpected: the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.: The Dyer's Hand
- Vice and Sin
All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.: A Certain World